Lobbying for just a nod, a mention

The State of the Union address may be one of the most heavily lobbied 6,800-word documents in Washington.

Immigration reform; the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community; background checks for gun buyers; and the Keystone pipeline are just a few of the wide array of issues liberal groups are lobbying White House aides to tuck into the text of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

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It’s an annual tradition: Trade groups, unions and advocacy organizations scramble to sell their cause in hopes of scoring one of the specific references sprinkled throughout the speech each year. And this time around, the White House appears to be paying closer attention than usual to what its friends want to hear.

“Generally speaking, it is the Super Bowl of politics — it’s as competitive and difficult in that way,” said Robert Raben, president of progressive lobbying firm The Raben Group. “This is where the president lays out to his biggest audience of the year what he stands for and what his party stands for.”

“The advocacy and lobbying is intense,” he added.

This year, the White House has been open to hearing from groups that will be critical to Obama’s reelection effort.

A day after Obama returned in January from his family’s holiday vacation in Hawaii, the president stopped by a meeting in Washington where chief speechwriter Jon Favreau was talking with a confab of progressive leaders from the group Common Purpose.

The group represents women’s organizations, ethnic groups, labor and progressive grass-roots coalitions. This iteration of the group’s weekly Tuesday afternoon meeting at the Capitol Hilton was an opportunity for Favreau to take suggestions about what should be in the president’s speech, according to a person briefed on the meeting who requested anonymity because it was off the record.

Other groups are taking their wish lists — which range from requests for single words to long-shot pushes for entire pieces of legislation — to the White House themselves.

The Human Rights Campaign successfully pushed to keep the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal effort in Obama’s speech last year, even after Congress approved the legislation. This year, the group pushed Obama to mention the LGBT community in his list of accomplishments and policy proposals.

“The inclusion of our community in those laundry lists in any part of the speech helps us tremendously in being thought of as a vital part of the American fabric,” said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for HRC.

“The good news for this White House is that they don’t believe that the oracle of wisdom begins and ends with them, so they are solicitous of perspectives from a wide variety of folks,” he added, noting that lobbyists know that issues related to jobs have a better shot.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials views the speech as an opportunity for the president to shore up support among disappointed backers.

NALEO Executive Director Arturo Vargas said concerns about voter ID laws in states like South Carolina and Obama’s failure to secure immigration reform may force his organization to lobby the White House directly for language in the State of the Union that could help stave off further disenchantment among Hispanic voters.